California’s Worst Wildfire Season Ever Is About to Get Uglier

California’s worst fire season on record is about to ramp up as a hot, dry autumn promises even more destruction, blackouts and evacuations.

Already, 2020 has yielded three of the four largest blazes in state history, with wildfires torching an unprecedented 2.2. million acres and cutting power to hundreds of thousands of Californians. It’s going to get worse in October and November, as a conveyor belt of dry winds whip through the state, amplifying fire risk.

A firefighter works during the Creek Fire in Madera County, California on Sept. 7.

Photographer: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

The danger isn’t limited to disaster-weary California. Rising temperatures and an extreme mega-drought across the U.S. West are fueling fires from Washington to ...